Our Staff

Our Instructors have spent many years devoted to training in the art of Taekwondo, PMA and other martial arts, attaining a high level of expertise to qualify them as teachers and also mentors.

Through extensive testing, certification and tournament level competition, our staff have gained extensive skills which they now enjoy sharing and passing on to their students.

On-going training allows our instructors to stay up to date on the latest and most effective self-defense techniques, teaching methods, nutrition and exercise science. This on-going process is our assurance that each of our students will continue to receive only the very best in martial arts training. Premier Martial Arts instructors are professionals, we are experts in what we do. We expect our instructors to be the best, so you can expect the best from our instructors.

Katy Lam (Centre Manager)

Katy started training in ITF Taekwondo at the Leeds University club in October 2006 and began training at the Leeds Taekwondo Centre in the summer of 2007 - first in Taekwondo and then PMA.

She joined the staff of the Centre in February 2008 and went on maternity leave in 2012 to look after her little boy.

more about our master instructor

Mr Lam is a 4th generation martial artist who started training at the age of 6 with his dad, a Loong Gar Kung Fu instructor in Hong Kong (which gives some insight into his passion and natural ability!)

He first tried TKD at the age of 10, whilst on holiday, and was immediately hooked when he realized that kicking came naturally to him. On his return home to Greenock, Scotland he joined a GTI (ITF) club, achieving the grade of blue tags, grading under Master Kim Stones.

Around this time he came across an article in the TKD Times Magazine on Master Andy Brown, the Scottish National Coach at the time. This inspired him to make the long journey to attend his first class under Master Brown. It made such an impression on him that he decided he wanted to start training at the club from then onwards. Unfortunately, he was too young to travel that far on his own, so he trained in various Kung Fu systems until he turned 13, when he officially started training in WTF TKD under Master Brown (whose instructor is world renowned martial arts author, Master Sang H Kim). Between the ages of 10-16 he competed mainly in regional competitions and was the Scottish Junior Champion three times. While training under Master Brown he had to travel two hours each way, five days a week to get to his classes, so a lot of his schoolwork was done on a train.

By the age of 16, he had reached the rank of black tags, but decided to wait to grade for his black belt as typically he wanted the grading to be a true challenge. The opportunity arose for him to train in the USA under Master Do Hyung Chang (Captain of the Korean Tigers Team). Having trained under Master Chang during his year-long stay in North Carolina, at age 18 Mr Lam took his 1st Dan grading in front of a panel of five Korean masters for three hours on his own, passing with 97%. While in USA he also won the North Carolina Open, winning in both sparring and forms, for which he was presented an additional trophy for competition overall Grand Champion. He also trained on a regular basis at the Greensboro Black Belt Academy, owned by Master Yang Jing Bang (current Vice-President of the WTF). While in the States he was also invited to train on a weekly basis with the State team, which consisted of numerous national and world champions.

On his return to the UK, Mr Lam moved to Leeds to study Sports Science at the Metropolitan University. For the next 5 years he competed extensively in national level competitions, winning many national titles and representing the Scottish National Team and the GB Team in international and televised events. He was awarded Player of the Year in 2002.

At the age of 18 he also embarked on his career as an instructor, taking over some local classes in Leeds and has built the club up over the last 8 years. Mr Lam now runs the biggest WTF Taekwondo club in Leeds, teaching kids and adults of all ages.

When Mr Lam was 22, he went travelling around the world. His final destination was Hong Kong, where he worked as a stuntman and actor. While there, he was privileged to have met and worked with some of his lifelong heroes including Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and Donnie Yen. He also worked on various TV programs, commercials and short films, and as a personal trainer for various local celebrities, coaching them in both general fitness and screen fighting ability.

He has since worked on such films as Just One Look, Displaced, Batman Begins and The Silencer.

Mr Lam is a Certified Fitness Instructor – with his fitness and sports science background he regularly applies new training methods to his classes to keep them up to date. The aim is to get better results through a more scientific approach. He is also a Certified Body Combat instructor

Mr Lam has also worked as a bouncer around the Leeds area. This has helped him gain more first hand experience of the psychology of violence, conflict management and the application of martial arts techniques in the real world.

He was recently invited to train with the GB technical squad (forms) with the aim of competing once again on an international level but in a different aspect of TKD.

Despite the politics between ITF and WTF styles Mr Lam supports all TKD, as long as the standard is high.

Despite his experience and achievements, Mr Lam is friendly, very approachable and truly loves what he does, making sure his students do too.